


In Our Bed After the War

by Redrikki



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Infidelity, Misunderstandings, Past Rape/Non-con, Slaves of the Republic Arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 16:22:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11740731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redrikki/pseuds/Redrikki
Summary: After the mission to Zygerria, Padmé and Anakin have a difficult conversation.





	In Our Bed After the War

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the anonymous hurt/comfort tumblr prompt "don't touch me."

Anakin’s tossing and turning woke Padmé from a light sleep. He’d been off all night. First, he’d been oddly subdued at dinner. Then, in bed, he’d been so pliant yet unresponsive it had been like making love to an empty body. It had been a relief for both of them when Padmé called a halt.

Now, Anakin was struggling against the blankets as if fighting off an invisible assailant. “No,” he moaned, “stop.”

“Ani!” Padmé tugged his shoulder and tried to shake him awake.

“Don’t touch me!” 

His unexpected blow caught Padmé full in the face. She yelped, reeling back. He needed to wake up, but she didn’t dare touch him again. Luckily, her startled cry seemed to have done the trick.

Anakin bolted upright, gasping for breath. His eyes darting around the room in panicked confusion. “Padmé?” He took in her rapidly bruising cheek and his expression clouded with shame. “Padmé, I’m sorry.”

“It's alright.” Padmé smiled gently. The pain was already fading. “I’ve taken harder hits sparing with my handmaidens.” She’d have a bruise tomorrow, but that’s what make-up was for.

Anakin shook his head. “No, not just that. I—” He swallowed hard and looked down. It was a beautiful bedspread, but not worth the attention Anakin was paying it.

“You what, Anakin?” She reached for him, but he flinched away. 

“I cheated on you,” he blurted.

Padmé opened her mouth but no sound came out. She felt as though she were floating above her body. It pulled back and up and away until she was back in it standing with her arms wrapped around herself. There was a stranger in her bed. It couldn’t be Anakin. Her Ani would never betray her like this. “Who was she?” Padmé was distantly surprised by how calm she sounded. “How—” Now her voice broke, but she pushed through the impending tears. “How could you do that to me?”

For a long time, he didn’t answer. He didn’t even have the decency to look at her as he ripped her heart out. Instead, he pulled his knees up and ran his hands up and down them. “Our last mission. To Zygerria,” he finally said, haltingly. “We were undercover as slavers.” His hands made a swish, swish sound as he rubbed them up and down his knees. Up and down, up and down. “Our cover was blown. I got captured. Separated.” He swallowed hard. “The queen. She said. If I misbehaved. If I didn’t do what she wanted. She’d kill them.”

Padmé shook her head. Anakin had said he cheated on her, but that wasn’t a cheating story. “Let me get this straight,” she said slowly as she struggled to get her head around it. “You were a prisoner.”

He picked up the pace of his knee rubbing. “I could have escaped. I could have gotten away.” 

She ignored that and kept going. “You were a prisoner and your captor threatened to kill Obi-Wan and Ahsoka—”

“And Rex.”

Padmé nodded, accepting the correction. It didn’t make the story any better. “You were a prisoner and your captor threatened to kill Obi-Wan and Ahsoka and Rex unless you let her _kriff_ you.” 

Anakin flinched at her language, or maybe the memory of what had happened. His hands slid off his legs to lie limply at his side. “I kriffed her,” he said in a dull, lifeless voice. “I kriffed her.”

“Did you want to?”

“No.” Anakin’s voice broke as his eyes filled with tears. “I hated it. I hated her!” he yelled even as the tears spilled over and ran down his face. “I let my attachment endanger the mission and ruin our marriage. I—”

“Was raped.” 

He looked at her with complete incomprehension. 

“You were raped.” He hadn’t cheated. He hadn’t betrayed her. Relief warred with horror and Padmé began to shake. Her husband had been raped. 

“You’re mad,” Anakin said quietly.

“Mad?!” Padmé’s incredulous laugh sounded half-crazed to her own ears. She began to pace like a caged animal. Her hands itched for her blaster. She wanted to fly the nearest ship to Zygerria. She wanted to show that evil bitch what happened to people who hurt her Ani. “Mad doesn’t even cover it. I’m furious. I’m enraged. I’m—”

“Sorry,” Anakin whispered. He shrank in on himself like a terrified slave boy cowering from his mistress’s wrath. Cowering, Padmé realized, from her. 

She was doing this all wrong. Padmé stopped in her tracks and sank back down onto the bed. “Oh, Ani.” She wanted to reach for him but the defensive curl of his shoulders stayed her hand. He might break if she touched him now. “I’m not mad at you. It's this queen I’m angry at.” Some of the tension drained from his shoulders and something loosened in Padmé’s chest. He wasn’t afraid of her and she could get him through this. “She hurt you and I would kill her if I could.”

“Too late,” he said with a sad ghost of a smile. 

“Oh.” Padmé tried not to sound disappointed. She didn’t consider herself a bloodthirsty person, but she had been looking forward to the prospect of shooting this Zygerrian queen in her face. She wasn’t the wronged party here, she reminded herself. It wasn’t about what she wanted. “What do you need?”

He stared at her blankly like he didn’t understand the question. “Does…does that mean you forgive me?”

Padmé’s face crumpled as she fought to hold back tears. “Oh, Ani, there’s nothing to forgive.” This time when she reached for him, Anakin fell eagerly into her arms. Padmé stroked his hair as he sobbed. They would be alright. He would be alright. She would heal him with her love.


End file.
